WNAM REPORT: China’s top lawmakers are set to meet Wednesday amid an investigation into the country’s two top generals.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) will hold its 20th session in Beijing, but it remains to be seen whether the body, led by NPC chairman Zhao Leji, will deliberate the fates of Gen. Zhang Youxia and Gen. Liu Zhenli, who are under investigation, which was announced Jan. 24.
The proposed agenda of the session is to review a report on NPC deputy qualifications.
Zhang and Liu are under investigation for “suspected serious discipline and law violations,” according to the Defense Ministry.
They are members of the seven-member Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Mission (CMC), led by President Xi Jinping.
With the latest probe, the CMC is left with only two active members, including Xi and Zhang Shengmin, who serves as secretary of the commission’s discipline inspection body.
Gen. He Weidong, Gen. Li Shangfu and Admiral Miao Hua were investigated and removed from the CMC in recent months.
The CMC was formed in 2023, when Xi began his unprecedented third term.
The New York Times said China had at least 30 generals and admirals at the start of 2023 who ran specialized departments and theater commands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with “nearly all of them” either “expelled” or “disappeared” in the span of three years.
While some replacements were made, the report published Tuesday said, “many of those have also vanished from public view.”
It added that “only seven” generals or admirals “appear to remain in active roles” as of Tuesday.
And they include Defense Minister Dong Jun, who is not a member of the CMC; two commanders assigned to Eastern Theater; one each in Central Theater, Army and Air Force, besides the secretary of the discipline section.
The NPCSC was scheduled to hold its regular session later this month but is holding the emergency session Wednesday.
“This will be the second emergency session of the 14th NPCSC, following its July 2023 meeting to replace Qin Gang as China’s foreign minister,” according to the NPC Observer, an independent platform which regularly translates official Chinese developments on its website and US social media platform X.
The Chinese military official media, the PLA Daily, wrote Monday that the probe into the top generals would “eliminate watered-down” combat capability within the armed forces.
“The resolute investigation and punishment of corrupt officials such as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli removes obstacles and stumbling blocks that hinder the development of our cause,” according to a front-page editorial.
